


September I Remember

by zombified_queer



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Body Horror, M/M, Monsters, Silent Hill 2 AU, Silent Hill-typical violence and gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-04-23 07:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14327901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombified_queer/pseuds/zombified_queer
Summary: A dead person can't writer a letter, can they? Garak comes to the town to investigate the letter the late Julian sent him.





	1. Letter

**Author's Note:**

> If you've played Silent Hill 2, then some things might be familiar and some might not be.

_My dearest Garak,_

_Do you remember how I told you about that town I wanted to visit back on Earth? It felt like so long ago that I brought it up. If it wasn't for this disease, we could go there, just the two of us._

_I keep dreaming of the two of us having a picnic by the lake, me feeding you slices of fruit. In my dreams, Silent Hill is warm and you could bask to your heart's content. It get so warm in the summer, though you'd probably find it chilly right now. September is always the worst for these little vacation towns._

_Recently, I've just felt so angry and hurt that we never get to do anything, that you're stuck caring for me. I didn't think I could tell you in person, so I asked the nurse to give this to you after I'm gone. So, when you read this, I'll be dead._

_I still want to see you, Garak. I'll be waiting and you’ll know where to find me._

_Yours forever,_

_Julian._


	2. Cemetery

Sending letters was an antiquated thing, a hobby more than it was a major source of communication. But Garak traces the envelope, the pristine handwriting that can only be Julian's. The only problem is the letter was postmarked two years after Julian's death, the date written in Julian's own hand.

Did the doctor think it was romantic? A gothic tale of resurrection or a dark joke? 

Did he fake his death to get away from Garak, the Cardassian being too much to handle? 

Garak pulls the letter from the envelope. The writing - messy cursive - is decidedly Julian's. He reads it over one last time. He folds the paper delicately, sliding it into the envelop again. 

Garak clutches it close and looks out at the coastal town. It used to be a tourist trap of sorts, a place to get away. But with heavy fog rolling in from the lake, Garak can't help but wonder why Julian would want to meet here.

Slipping the envelope into his coat pocket, Garak gets out of the rented skimmer. There's only one thing to do now that he's here. 

He has to find Julian.

He follows the path along the lake, descending into the forest. The path takes a gentle turn away from the waterfront. It's a long walk and the fog and the clouds do little to help Garak keep track of how long he's been walking. He's careful to stay on the path since the edges of the hills seem to drop off into foggy nothingness.

Garak pauses, almost sure he can hear footsteps. Whoever it is, he can't see them, the fog too thick. He doesn't call out to them, not wanting to break the dead silence.

And it is too quiet, he thinks as he continues along the path. He's not terribly familiar with Terran animals, but Garak's certain bird should be chirping, thing should be scurrying about on the ground. 

Eventually, the path evens out, the trees thin. Even the fog seems to lighten up, Garak being able to see more. 

A gate looms in front of him and Garak finds it opens with just a gentle push, though the hinges shriek their displeasure. The sound startles Garak, the first sound to break the silence.

Garak nearly trips over a gravestone in the fog, stumbling back before walking around it. Looking around, the cemetery seems empty except for stone and dead grass. None of the names on the gravestones are readable, not that Garak would recognize any of them. He thinks he catches the name "Bashir" on one of the stones but when he kneels to investigate, it turns out to be nothing, the stone too worn to read.

It's nothing new, but this is a cruel trick for his eyes to be playing on him.

He barely notices the young woman until he almost trips over her. 

She looks up and Garak catches a glimpse of her face, the ridges across the bridge of her nose. She's not wearing an earring.

"Oh!" She stumbles to her feet, wiping her hands on her jeans. 

"I didn't mean to scare you," Garak says. "I'm Garak. I’m trying to get to town. Do you know the way?"

She tucks her hair behind her ear and Garak can see she's got the same aural ridges he does, though hers are more subtle. "There's . . . there's a road." She points at the gate leading out of the cemetery. "It's just the one and it goes straight through town."

"Thank you." He turns to go, trying not to think about how familiar she looks.

"Wait!"

He turns, blinking slowly, raising a brow ridge.

"I don't think you should go," she says. "It might be dangerous."

"I don't care," Garak admits. 

"You don't?" And now she raises a brow ridge at him, though hers are more subtle, and puts hands on her hips. 

"I'm looking for someone. Someone important to me."

"Oh," she says softly, looking down. "I'm Ziyal. I'm looking for my mama. I mean, my mother."

"I hope you find her," Garak says. 

He decides to leave alone as she stares at the gravestones again. Maybe one of them is sentimental to her.

Pausing at the gate, Garak looks over his shoulder at Ziyal again but she's gone. The fog seems to get a bit thicker, so he brushes it off. Maybe she left or maybe it's just a trick of the light.

The iron gate squawks a loud disapproval as he pushes it open. Stepping out of the cemetery, Garak finds himself on a side street. He heads in the direction that seems to lead to town, stepping from the side street onto the main road. A billboard stands on the sidewalk, the map faded, the paper torn in spots or drawn on in untidy graffiti, but Garak can just barely make out the most direct route to the park, hoping to find Julian there first.

Walking through the fog-choked streets, Garak realizes how alone he is. It's quiet to the point where footsteps feel like infringing on the quiet. Most of the shops are boarded up, lights off in the buildings. Passing by a bar, he turns onto the side street, following it for a short while.

He pauses, seeing a large red stain in the road. It looks and smells enough like blood. Hearing footsteps, Garak looks up to see a figure stumble off into the fog. They're gone before he can get a good look at them. He follows them, listening for their footsteps. 

The road continues until he comes to a spot of construction, the tunnel that leads to the park mostly closed off. There's an open section in the chainlink fence. He can just squeeze through it. Before he can slip through, a bout of radio static makes him turn, heart racing in his chest.

The device is small, resting on top of a barrel and easy enough to take with him, and it doesn't look like anyone's going to miss the radio much. Garak slips it into his pocket, noting how retro the design of the touchscreen is. He kneels, picking up a section of heavy metal pipe that looks out of place among the wooden board. Giving it an experimental swing, Garak feels a bit better.

Garak squeezes through the fence. 

The figure's there, on its knees. Garak still can't make out it's face.

"Julian?"

The figure staggers to its feet and in the gloom, he knows this thing isn't a human. There is no face, only a sheet of flesh wrapping the figure to its hips, twitching as if to escape its own skin. The long slit down the creature's front gapes ever so slightly, like a mouth awaiting food. 

Garak swings the pipe as the radio blares harsh static. The creature shrieks. Garak swings again, the creature screaming as it collapses. 

The creature doesn't get up. The radio goes back to being quiet.

"What is it?" Garak asks, mostly to himself, prodding the creature with the length of pipe. "Julian must be in danger."

The other side of the tunnel is blocked off by gating that doesn't appear to be coming down anytime soon. He turns, squeezing back through the chain link fence, making up his mind to find another way to the park. 

The radio comes to life again and Garak takes it out of his coat pocket.

_"Gar...find...m..."_

Garak raises a brow ridge. It almost sounds like Julian under the distortion and static.

_"wh...y...kill...?"_

It switches off again, the quiet settling over Garak like a thick blanket.


	3. Woodside Apartments

As soon as Garak leaves the construction area, he's met with another billboard. This one''s a bit tidier, free of most of the graffiti—someone's drawn a crude stick figure with a triangle for a head in red spray paint and there's a church out in the middle of the lake circled in marker—and with a more intact map, the street names clearly legible but with some tears that almost look like claw marks. 

There's an alleyway that cuts between two apartment complexes—Blue Creek and Wood Side—that leads directly to the park. It seems a simple enough route, if a bit longer, more complicated that just turning off the main road. If it wasn't for the seemingly endless construction, he would have been there already. 

He just hopes Julian can wait a little while longer. 

As he heads back into town, the fog clings to Garak lie a second skin, cold and thick. Smothering, almost. And it makes it hard to see anything, as if trying to stop his progress. 

When the radio's gentle static turns into a blaring screech, Garak looks around for another one of those monsters. He can just barely make out a squirming, writhing figure in the gloom. And it's headed for him.

A second one staggers out of an alley, spraying some foul fluid that narrowly misses Garak and makes him choke. 

He runs.

He's sure he could handle two of them but he doesn't want to spend every ounce of energy fighting those things. Especially since he doesn't know how many there are or where they come from.

He almost runs—quite literally—into another one of those writing things. 

It turns slowly to look at him, the orifice on it's chest opening and closing as if considering him. It swings the upper half of itself at Garak, using itself as a club.

Garak steps back and then hurries off again.

He's blind in where he runs, not caring about anything else except getting away from those things. He turns down a side street and from there into an alley and stops to catch his breath.

The radio's gone back to gentle static and he can't see any more of those things. They don't seem to be exceptionally fast. He wonders if they can even see, their heads covered by their own flesh.

Or maybe this is all a nightmare. 

_Drip._

Garak turns his head.

There's a body slumped against the wall. Cardassian. Male. Around Garak's age. His face—what's left of it—is beaten in, still dripping blood onto the pavement.

_Drip._

This time it's blood and something that cone only be brain or maybe bone. 

In his hand, something shines.

Garak kneels, not looking at the man's battered face. He reaches for the metal in the man's hand. 

A key.

There's a tag that reads "Wood Side."

Garak pockets the key and stands. 

Splat.

Taking a deep breath, he walks back into the fog. He keeps calm, focusing on the street signs, mouthing their names.

He nearly trips over the sign to the Wood Street apartments, the sign only knee-high. It's dilapidated, like everything else in this town, the letters worn and the lights that should illuminate the sign are long broken, the glass from the bulbs long gone with wind or with rain.

The apartments are bordered by a chain link fence, the poles holding up the chain link bent and rusted. The gate's locked with thick chains, too thick to be near appropriate for closing off an old apartment complex. The padlock—a near ancient device—is heavy and ice-cold as Garak takes it into his hand. He pulls out the key he pocketed, finding it fits perfectly.

It takes a bit of force to turn the key and Garak fears snapping the fragile metal in his hand. It holds, though, the padlock clicking. Garak drops it, the sound of metal on pavement a gunshot in the silence.

The chains follow, rattling loudly, metal against metal. The sound makes Garak cringe.

Creaking loudly, the gate swings open, allowing Garak into the parking lot of the apartments. There's not a single vehicle and all the spaces are too worn to read which spot belongs to which apartment.

The planters along the front of the building are overgrown with weeds, the dying greens the only splash of colour against the pale beige building.

Against all his better judgement, Garak tries the front door and finds it unlocked. It opens slowly, quietly for once, what little light from outside spilling into the darkness.

Garak swallows back his fear—fear of the dark, of the walls that seem just a little too close for comfort, the dread bubbling up at being so closed in—and steps inside.  
He finds a map pinned to the wall, next to the entrance, that's been clawed at. It's crude and he and barely make out the key scrawled in childish crayon, but it sees someone's been here before him, laid out the place.

Garak doesn't know if that makes him feel better or worse.

He takes it down carefully. 

The front door slams shut. Garak jumps. There's no wind, no one behind him, and the door seemed just fine being open a moment before. He swallows and consults his new, hand-drawn companion.

According to the map, the only unlocked apartment on the first floor is around the corner. As he walks past a set of double doors, he consults the map. It leads to the courtyard and curiosity takes over.

Something runs into the door. Something heavy. Something fleshy. 

Garak freezes.

Another hard thump. The doors seem solid enough. Garak mentally crosses off the courtyard and continues around the corner.

The apartment is unlocked, just as the map said. The knob turns easy in Garak's hand, the door opening just as quietly as the front door. It's an eerie sort of silence, the calm before a downpour, tense and charged.

The apartment is sparsely furnished, though not in bad shape. Terribly outdated in it's decor and furnishings—the wallpaper is at least two centuries Garak's senior and he has a desire to reach up and pull at the yellowed paper—but it's unsettling. The time period is frozen, like a layer of dust, over the down.

_Drip._

The kitchen is a mess, though a recent one, as if someone very immature has been squatting here. The counters are covered with unwashed dishes, food wrappers, and crumbs, all of it covered in a layer of thick dust. The mess spills over onto the floor, across the tiles. Something on the counter skitters away from Garak, hiding in a dark corner of the filth.

_Drip._

A fluid—deep scarlet and thick—drips from the fridge, pooling on the kitchen tiles. Garak's careful not to step into the spreading pool as he approaches the fridge. Curiosity burns through him, even as fear makes his hand shake. He opens the fridge and jumps back with a sharp gasp.

Inside the fridge is a single body, hacked into messy pieces. The head is turned in profile, pushed toward the back, but Garak can make out the ridges of the nose, the glint of a tarnished d'ja pagh. It's a young man, a teenager really. Bajoran.

The fridge door swings closed. The dripping continues, blood still pooling on the floor, the pool growing with an almost impossible amount of fluid. It stains the white tiles, gets between the tiles into the grout, seeping in, shining in contrast to the black tiles.

The sound of retching makes Garak jump.

He turns, anticipating another attack from one of those writhing monsters. The attack doesn't come. 

Garak leaves the kitchen, stepping into the bathroom. There's a Cardassian collapsed before the toilet, gripping the porcelain as if fighting for his life. He can't be much older than his Emergence, if he's even that old. The kid—since he's really a teenager more than anything—retches again, bile splashing against the porcelain. 

"Are you alright?"

"I didn't kill him," the kid replies. He heaves a few more times, but it's a dry heaving, nothing coming up. The sound makes Garak cringe more. Nothing comes up and the kid sighs. "The guy in the fridge . . . I didn't do it."

Garak turns, leaving the bathroom. He steps into the apartment's tiny kitchenette, the quiet almost oppressive without the kid vomiting. Then it hits him. It’s _quiet._

Garak's apprehensive about going into the kitchen again, but he does. Slowly. Every step seems to echo on the tile. 

The kitchen's still filthy. Wrappers still line the counters. There's still crumbs. Garak steps on one of the wrappers, jumping at the crackling. 

There's no pool under the fridge.

Swallowing, he reaches out. Garak opens it.

There's no body in the fridge.

There's nothing in it at all.

Garak walks back into the bathroom. The other Cardassian looks up at him.

"There's no body there."

"Oh," the other Cardassian says.

"I'm Garak," he says softly. "Elim Garak."

"I'm Rugal," the younger Cardassian says. 

"Rugal. You should get out of here. It's not safe."

"Why?" Rugal draws his knees up to his chest, hugging his legs. 

"There's monsters here," Garak says. "Dangerous ones."

"They . . . They look like monsters to you?"

Garak feels his breath stop. Rugal's brooding is broken by a sharp bark of a laugh.

"Gotcha!"

"That wasn't funny," Garak hisses. 

He turns, leaving Rugal laughing, and walks back into the dark. He's come to find Julian, not lecture some immature teenager.

* * *

The apartment door Garak comes to is unlocked, slightly ajar. Stepping inside, Garak finds the apartment's living room lit, allowing him a small amount of light to see by. His pulse quickens as he steps into the living room.

Mannequins—like the one in his shop an age and a half ago—fill the living room, some of them the usual shop-like mannequins and others two sets of legs put together in some perverse way. In the very centre, one is dressed in a Starfleet uniform. Medical. Lieutenant Commander. There's a flashlight—Starfleet issue—stuck to the lapel.

Garak reaches out, unclipping the flashlight from the mannequin's uniform. The moment he attaches it to his own clothes, there's a skittering in the dark. 

Reaching out, Garak’s fingers close around a wooden baseball bat. He hold it firmly in his hand.

The thing skitters again. It sound large.

He look around the room, the flashlight aiding his search. The radio’s quiet except for gentle static.

Something large and smooth hits Garak in the shoulder hard. He staggers, swinging the bat without thinking. The thing creaks.

It’s a mannequin, one of the depraved things. It’s just two sets of long, slender, russet-coloured legs fitted together at the waist. The legs are almost like—

He swings the bat. Hard. This time he knocks the mannequin over, the thing laid on the carpet with its legs splayed suggestively. Garak raises the bat over his head, bringing it down 

The plastic cracks, oozing something dark onto the carpet. He brings the bat down again, spraying the room with that dark liquid. The mannequin doesn’t move again.

* * *

He climbs the stairs, turns down a hallway, narrowly avoiding another wad of flying acrid fluid from one of those writhing things. But once he turns down this hall, the pursuit stops. 

As if they're afraid of something.

As if there's some greater threat lurking in the dark.

Garak slows his pace, always looking behind his shoulder for those monsters. The hallway stretches on, dark and—this might be Garak's imagination—the walls seem too close, as if trying to crush the life from him.

The radio hasn't stopped it's harsh screeching the whole walk down the hall, the scream a warning about those . . . things.

He almost runs into the bars in the dark. They're like old prison bars, sturdy and thick steel, too close-set for him to squeeze through and keeping him firmly on his side. He’s grateful.

There's a figure on the other side.

The figure's broad and muscular, scaled like Garak. The heavy sword in the figure's hand drags on the ground. It’s head is encased in a pyramid-shaped cage and Garak shivers. An emergency light casts the figure in a red glow, making the stains of his—since nothing so cartoonishly muscular can be feminine—apron look more dark and more crimson than they really are.

Or at least Garak hopes their not that dark.

The thing just studies Garak, a subtle rise of his chest or a tilting of that cage letting Garak know it’s not just a statue.

He reminds Garak, for the briefest instant, of himself but younger and more muscular. He’s reminded of a portrait of a younger Enabran Tain that dominated the house.

There’s no doubt that, if he wanted, the pyramid-headed thing could bend or even break those bars.

With a shiver, Garak back away, not wanting to look away from this thing.

* * *

This door's unlocked. He steps inside, shutting the apartment door behind him. 

The clock itself is stopped, the arms missing from its face. But there's a faint ticking, one that seems to be coming from down the hall. 

Garak follows the sound. A moth rests on the door leading to the hall, wings opening and closing lazily, displaying the mottled greys and browns of its pattern. He reaches out, taking the moth in his hand. 

The ticking grows fainter, moving farther off.

When he opens his hand, the moth is gone. There's not a single trace of it ever having being held in Garak's hand.

He opens the door and steps out into the now empty hall. Garak follows the sound of the clock ticking, wandering down the hall until the sound it loudest, the source hiding just behind the apartment door. 

He tries the doorknob and finds it unlocked. 

This apartment, like the others, is filthy. Everything is covered in mildew and a lantern, resting on a dilapidated bookshelf held together with duct tape and supported by cinder blocks, casts the apartment in a red glow.

The ticking stops the moment he steps inside.

A more organic sound takes over, unpleasant like the grinding of teeth on bone, cracking and snapping. 

He moves through the apartment, another red glow coming from the sink. He doesn't bother investigating the source, not wanting to know. Instead, he follows the sound into the bedroom.

Moths flutter about, sometimes resting on the bed—no doubt to eat at the sheets—but they never stop for long. As Garak approaches a hole in the wall—where the grinding and cracking is loudest—the moths fly against his face, bashing themselves against their scales. 

The hole drips a green ooze which smells revolting and rotten. Garak feels compelled to stick his hand in. 

He sidles up, fingers brushing the border of the hole. His mind plays out every scenario he's heard of: walls collapsing in to crush limbs to the point of needing amputation, being pricked by unseen metal only to have infection set in, traps that would drop a blade to sever hands at the wrist. But he reaches in without a care. The hole is endless. The more of his hand he feeds to it, the longer it seems to stretch on.

Something _skitters_ past his hand. 

He pulls back so fast he almost twists his arm, gasping as he startles. Inspecting his hand, he finds nothing. No bug. No bruise. Not even a scrape.

Steeling his nerves, Garak sticks his hand back in, reaching for something, anything. The hole takes his hand to the shoulder, Garak's cheek pressed to the wall. His fingers close around something, two something, really. Cold metal greets Garak's fingers and he pulls them from the hole.

Clasped in his fist are the grandfather clock's key. 

It's an ornate pieces of metal, carved with sharp diagonals. It’s gold or, at least, gilded, and terribly light in Garak's hand.

The moths stop their furious assault on Garak's face. He turns, finding them dead, a majority laid out on the bed, wings pressed to the sheets and legs offered up. A couple twitch, just a final struggle before laying still and lifeless.

The silence and stillness unnerves Garak. When he leaves the bedroom, the lantern on the bookshelf pops, the light going out. Only the light from the sink in the kitchen offers a slight red glow to illuminate his way to the front door. 

The hallway still exacerbates Garak's claustrophobia, but it's better than being in that apartment.

* * *

The key fits perfectly in the clock, letting Garak wind it. Now functioning, Garak gives the larger hand a turn around the clock's face, the smaller hand moving as it should. Now there's just the question of what time to set it to.

On the wall next to the clock is scrawled: _The hands of time move for all, but to everyone this is simply a wall._ and beneath that is scratched into the wallpaper: **Do you remember when it happened?**

Garak, without hesitation, sets the time to 9:24. The clock’s chimes go off, the bells ringing loudly nine times. 

Experimentally, Garak shoves the clock, finding it slides along the floor easily. Behind the clock is just enough space to step through. The flashlight eases Garak’s fears as he steps into the next apartment.

The clock slides back into place behind him, sealing Garak in.

He jumps, giving the clock a push. It doesn't budge.

Sighing, Garak looks around the apartment. It's even more sparse and dilapidated than the others. The wallpaper is grey and peeling, the floor sags, the tiles and carpet all dark grey. But in the very centre of the room is a shopping cart.

Raising a brow ridge, Garak approaches the cart. Inside is a single ancient Terran handgun. Nine millimetre. A Glock. And there's plenty of boxes of bullets in the cart. 

Garak takes the gun. Whoever needed it before decidedly can't need it more than Garak needs it. He takes a couple boxes of ammo with him too, not liking the idea of waving around an empty gun.

The gun fits like a glove into his hand. It's a welcome weight, even if it is cold enough to make Garak shiver.

With that new sense of comfort, he heads out of the apartment, into the twisting halls again.

* * *

There's that pyramid-headed thing again, in the apartment's kitchenette. It seems more invested in the two mannequin monsters, writhing his—because it is decidedly masculine with it's overly-muscles physique—hips against the two mannequins, the giant knife held slack in one of the monster's hands. It's a grotesque orgy, one that Garak doesn't want to be a part of or want to interrupt.

He ducks, with a moment of hesitation, into the hall closet, trying to keep his breathing even and slow.

Being in the closet sends a shudder up Garak's spine. He doesn't turn off the flashlight, fearing the cramped space and darkness together might cascade into a full-scale meltdown. And he can still see the pyramid-headed thing, who doesn't seem to care about Garak.

He watches while the thing writhes violently, pelvis grinding against one of those living mannequins hard enough that Garak thinks the male monster might break the other two. As much as Garak wants to look away, he can’t. The thrashing fascinates him.

The bulkier pyramid-headed thing only stops its violent thrashing when it pries one of the mannequin’s legs from their sockets, a splash of dark ooze coating the pyramid-headed thing and the floor. 

The second mannequin is not without it’s share of injuries. It’s plastic skin has tin fractures from being held so hard, dark ooze leaking onto the pyramid-headed thing’s hands as he takes one ankle in hand, dragging it along with that great knife.

It stops—the Pyramid Head—and turns that giant pyramid cage to regard Garak. It has no eyes, not that Garak can see through the rusted metal, but something in its posture tells Garak it can see him.

Panic moves Garak's hands. He raises the gun and fires. And fires again. And fires again. And fires again.

Pyramid Head staggers with each shot, but does not collapse. It simply stares at Garak before moving on, dragging the mannequin behind him. 

Garak waits, panting, heart racing. He waits until he's sure the thing is gone and then slowly comes out of the hall closet. The mannequin the Pyramid Head destroyed remains still, the dark ooze congealing slowly.

* * *

There's a light at the end of the hall. The door is left ajar, a cold, natural light seeping into the hall. Garak tentatively pushes the door open, breath held. 

It's comparatively normal, if the most sparsely furnished he's come across. 

It looks in the process of renovations. The wallpaper's been peeled away in certain spots and there's plastic over the counters and appliances in the kitchen. There's no tools though and it makes Garak wonder how long ago this apartment's work was set aside, abandoned to rot.

The window has a fire escape. 

Garak crosses the living room to look out the window. Beyond the fire escape is another block of apartments, looking just as dilapidated at this one, maybe even more so. But there's an open window Garak can get to if he can just get out on the fire escape.

He tries the window, finding it locked with one of those primitive locks that needs a key. With a sigh, he turns, investigating the apartment. There's not much for the key to be hidden under in the living room and there's no key in the kitchen.

There's the bedroom, but it doesn't even have a bed in it. And the closet's got some spiderwebs without spiders, dust, and no key.

All that's left is the bathroom. 

The bathroom, in comparison to the rest of the apartment is where the work has stopped. Everything's covered in mildew and mold, the metal pipes rusted clear to the floor. The place reeks and Garak, with his Cardassian sense of smell, retches. 

The cupboards are empty except for dead moths and cobwebs. The shower's got no key that Garak can see. The toilet, however, has a glint of some metal beneath the surface. It also reeks like death and mildew.

He raises a hand, swallowing for a moment. 

"This is too disgusting," Garak says to himself. "Who would ever think of doing something this desperate?"

He stands, leaving the bathroom and closing the door. 

Considering the window again, he pulls off his jacket, wrapping his fist in it. With a single, sturdy punch, the glass shatters. Garak makes sure to break out all of the glass before climbing through the frame and out onto the fire escape. Reaching out, he manages to open the window of the other apartment wide enough to climb through.

And climb through he does.


	4. Blue Creek Apartments

This apartment complex makes the previous one look like a Risan resort. The wallpaper in the halls is torn away, the paper left on the carpet, the glue a wet mess that makes the carpets and walls faintly sticky. Years of being sticky with glue have left the carpets black with dust and dirt. 

Every step is the result of planning, Garak not wanting to step in the leftover glue.

"No, daddy! Don't!" 

The cry—shrill and hysterical and distinct—comes from behind one of the doors at the end of the hall. In spite of himself, Garak hurries his pace. The further down the hall he jogs, the louder the radio comes to life with screeching static.

The door's unlocked and Garak steps into the room without hesitation. He's wholly unprepared for what he finds.

It's a single room with no other doors—and the one behind him swings shut with a slam—and the whole thing is made of pus-coloured flesh, bouncing back under his steps.

Along the walls are pistons—five on the three walls enclosing him—all out of sync with the others. The air they pump into the room is foul, sticking in Garak's throat with a bitter aftertaste after each breath he draws in.

Ziyal's curled into a ball in one corner, curled against a low coffee table. On the coffee table, further shielding Ziyal, is a large, outdated television, the screen a thick curved glass.

A monster creeps toward Ziyal, but the hybrid simply stares into space, frozen but in a loose way.  
The creature looks like two bodies in one, fused together with a single, shared layer of flesh. The larger figure, the one that looms tall, has it's hands clutching at the smaller one under it, the head of the smaller figure turned completely around, the mouth--the only orifice on the creature--wheezing and begging wordlessly. The whole thing crawls like a slug, fixed into a tight oval, the thing roiling like waves while two appendages fused to some sort of bar scrape along the ground, sending a wave of dirt brushed along, scrubbing an inky black substance that drips from the thing's mouth into the threadbare carpet as it crawls along.

Garak feels disgust welling up in him, acid chewing at his oesophagus and he swallows, pulling the handgun from his hip. 

Sensing the danger in Garak's hands, the creature lumbers toward him in that wavy crawl, wheezing at him. 

He fires. The bullet sinks into the thing. From it's wound pours more of that black substance, making the apartment stink like a bloated corpse and rotten blood. The thing screeches, twitching and roiling.

Garak fires again and again, backing up across the small room. No matter how many shots he fires into the thing, it simply screams and continues lumbering toward him. He fires until the clip is empty, stepping around the creature as it rears up. 

Garak fumbles to load the second clip, hands shaking as he slides it in. Hearing the magazine click into place he fires a few more rounds into the creature. It screams, taking forever to turn its heavy body around to face Garak again. 

The last shot of the second magazine brings the creature down, collapsing awkwardly on its belly, the mouth giving one last wet, heaving cough, spraying that black substance. The taller figure slumps over.

Ziyal gets up, but there's nothing in her eyes. She picks up the heavy and outdated television set, heaving it over her head. For a split second, there's a manic glee in her face.

The television set crashes down on the creature, making it twitch and cry. The sound of the glass breaking makes Garak take a step back. He puts his gun away.

"Are you alright?" Garak asks.

"Don't touch me," Ziyal hisses. 

"It's alright," Garak assures her.

"So now you're being nice?" She hisses. "You men are all the same. You're only afer one thing." She eyes Garak coldly, crossing her arms over her chest, fingers digging into the sleeves of her sweater. 

"I'm not after anything," Garak replies, "honestly."

She continues glaring at him for a moment, lips pursed. "You make me sick. Being nice and lying to get your way. If you wanted to, you could just kill me like he threatened to."

"Ziyal, that's crazy. Listen to yourself." Garak lowers his hands to his sides. "I am not going to hurt you."

"Sure you aren't," Ziyal sneers. "How many people have you killed? Cardassians are killers, you know. Bajorans, Terrans, each other. It doesn't matter, does it?"

"You're half-Cardassian," Garak points out.

If she realizes the irony of her accusation, she doesn't say anything. There's nothing in her eyes to indicate she's even heard Garak.

"You said you were looking for your husband," Ziyal says. "Did you kill him too? Pull his teeth like they do in those prisons?" 

Before Garak can argue, she shakes her head, as if she's finished with the conversation. She storms across the room, flinging the door open and slamming it behind her when she leaves. 

"I didn't . . ." Garak murmurs to no one.

* * *

The halls, though dirty and dark, are free of those monsters tat spit acid. He can hear things scuttling in the walls, though, things too large to just be voles (rats, Terrans call theirr vermin) or insects. When the scuttling pauses, it becomes quiet enough for Garak to hear his blood filling with oxygen, the rush in his veins and the pounding in his chest. 

The stairwell creaks too loud under him and Garaks horrified, for one moment, that it might give way under him. He clutches at the icy metal of the railing hard enough to make his hand go numb. 

When the dread passes, he slowly continues down the dark steps.

On the first floor, there's a large set of double doors in the main hall, leading outside. Garak reaches for the handle, but pauses for a moment. Doubt whispers in the back of his mind that the doors are locked. 

He tries them anyway, finding them not only locked, but chains rattling from the outside. Sighing, he turns away from the doors. There's one set of stairs into the basement. 

Approaching the top of the stairs, Garak peers into the dark of the basement.

* * *

The basement is half-flooded with rancid, stagnant water. The top of a doorway can be seen poking out above the surface, but Garak's unsure whether to swim to it or to turn back, smash out a first-floor window. 

The door to the basement swings shut closing with a gentle click. Garak turns, training his flashlight on the door. There's nothing there.

Something splashes out of the water, Garak startles. When he turns, there's that pyramid headed monster facing him. Pyramid Head—as Garak's called him—drags the heavy knife along behind him, metal screaming against concrete. Garak backs away, reaching for his gun.

It clicks. Empty.

Fumbling in his coat pockets for another magazine, Garak backs away from the monster. The monster swings the knife, Garak ducking out of the way just in time. 

The metal clangs against metal, Pyramid Head growling unintelligibly behind the cage fastened to his skull.

The clip slides into the pistol at last. Garak raises the gun, firing blindly. 

He doesn't know if it hits the monster or not. There's no bullet hole, no blood, and the thing doesn't stop lumbering toward him. The knife is swung again, Garak strafing out of the way again. 

Garak fires into the monster over and over, each shot seemingly doing nothing. The pyramid-headed thing doesn't slow or stumble or shriek. It simply continues.

The gun clicks, signalling its emptiness. 

"No, no," Garak pleads with the gun. "Not now."

He backs away from the creature, who seems to know he has the Cardassian cornered. Pyramid head raises his great knife, the metal catching a faint, sinister light.

Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rings.

The creature pauses, dropping the blade, the swinging arc aborted, attack forgotten. He cocks his caged head, listening intently to the heavy reverberation of the cathedral's bells.   
Nine times the bell rings.

Pyramid Head ignores Garak entirely, stepping into that lower level of the basement. With a loud groan, the water drains out. Only then does Pyramid head descend, dragging his heavy blade behind him, metal screaming against stone, fading until the sound stops completely.

Once it's quiet, Garak moves, legs numb and hands tingling as he holsters his pistol. 

Resting on the top of the steps leading down are two boxes of pistol ammunition. Garak pockets them and descends.

The door out of the basement is unlocked. Garak has to pull hard to get the door to swing open, hinges squealing the entire time. 

He steps out of the basement into a narrow alley. He can smell the lake on the breeze. Garak doesn’t hesitate, not wanting to wait for that thing to come back.


	5. Rosewood Park

The fog that rolls in off the lake smothers Rosewood Park. It's quiet, grey, and with a slight, wet chill that makes Garak draw his coat tighter around himself.

He heads down to the lakefront. The single old, wooden pier juts out into the water alone. Black on grey.

Off in the distance, veiled thickly, is an island. 

There's a figure standing and staring at the shape rising out of the water. 

As he gets closer, the figure looks so familiar. Garak's chest aches.

"Julian!"

The figure turns to face Garak.

It's not Julian.

The man--a stranger to Garak--is Cardassian. He's half Garak's age, boyish as he breaks into a grin.

"Oh...you're not..."

"Do I remind you of your boyfriend?" the stranger asks.

"You're not my husband," Garak answers.

The younger Cardassian puts his hands on his hips. His outfit strikes Garak. The man's dressed in a deep navy blue shirt, cut low enough for Garak to see his chula. The man's painted it bright blue. He's also painted his scales bright blue. 

Just above the black of the man's tight jeans, the scales over his lower abdomen are painted in that same bright, burning blue.

An invitation.

And underneath all the scales and ridges, the man looks the same as Julian. Same lean, lanky figure. Same height. Same curls. Hell, they even have the same nose.

"What's wrong?" The stranger folds his arms over his chest. "You've never seen another man's scales before?"

"The resemblance is uncanny." Garak circles he stranger, trying not to stare too much but also unable to help himself. He shows more skin that Julian ever would. "You look just like him."

There's a moth tattooed over the man's hip. Garak can just imagine what a chore it is to redo the lines after a shed. There doesn't seem to be any parlours open for that sort of cosmetic work. None that Garak's seen lately.

"Did you marry a Terran or something?"

He even has Julian's accent.

Garak nods. "That's right, Mister...?"

"Jules," the stranger answers, fixing Garak with a cool hazel stare. "Just Jules."

"Jules." It rolls too easily off Garak's tongue.

"What? Was it your husband's name or something?" Jules' tone sounds annoyed but his eyes say interested. Very interested.

"He changed it."

Jules hums. He turns, going back to watching the grey, unmoving water. Garak looks around and, seeing no one else, stands next to Jules, staring at the lake with him.

"You're looking for him aren't you, Elim?"

"How--"

"Lots of people have heard of you," Jules defends. His face softens, looking almost sad. "And...you've got that hopeless look on your face."

Garak nods. "Are you looking for someone?"

Jules blinks. He stares at Garak for a while. Then he looks out at the water again. "No. I don't think so."

"Do you...want to come with me?" Garak stuffs his hands in the pockets of his trousers, hoping to look more candid. "There's monsters out there."

"Monsters!" Jules' hazel eyes cloud with doubt. Suspicion. "I'll take whatever you're smoking."

Garak huffs. "Fine then."

He turns to leave. A cold hand grabs his shoulder.

"Actually," Jules says, "I want to take you somewhere."

Garak looks over his shoulder, staring at the younger Cardassian's lips. "Alright. We're better off together, aren't we?"

Jules leans in and Garak's pulse quickens. Jules' breath is hot on Garak's jaw as he whispers, "Follow me."

Garak blinks. Jules vanishes, just an indistinct shape in the fog.

Chasing that warmth, Garak follows the younger Cardassian.

* * *

They walk through the empty, fog-laden town. Jules' svelte form saunters ahead, just obscured and writhing enough to make Garak question whether he's actually following one of those monsters.

His hand keeps brushing against his pistol while he walks.

After blocks and blocks of walking--half of it Garak thinks must've been in circles--Jules pauses in front of a boarded up building. Garak mouths the words on the dead neon sign. _Heaven's Night._

"Hold on." Jules grins over his shoulder at Garak.

Jules makes a show of patting himself down before fishing a key out of his jeans. The key slides into the lock easily. The door unlocks, groaning as it swings open into blackness. Jules' grin is bright as he ushers Garak inside. 

Cardassian eyes adapt easier to the dark and Garak can just make out the bar. He pointedly ignores the stage with its sturdy vertical poles. 

Jules flips on the lights, which are just a fraction better than the darkness. 

Garak stares at the posters behind the bar, faded ink and weathered paper. 

_Lady Maria returns Sunday at 9..._

_Shryss warms up on 24--_

While he watches, Jules, coy as a cat, steps up on stage, winding himself around the pole and sliding down it. Garak's scales heat up and he stares at the bottles behind the bar. Lots of kanar.

"Why are there so many Cardassians in this town?"

"You're the only other Cardassian I've seen, Elim."

Garak rounds the counter, tallying up all the bottles of kanar behind the bar. Nineteen. All putrid black in their glass bottles.

"I'll take a bourbon, if you don't mind."

Garak looks over, jumping when he sees Jules seated on the bar, thighs apart, palms resting on the edge of the bar behind him. Jules reaches forward, patting the space between his thighs, winking at Garak.

Turning to find a bottle of bourbon, Garak decides to hand Jules the bottle instead.

Jules scoffs. Opening the bourbon, he drinks it down violently.

"I have to find him," Garak announces, unprompted. 

"Who? Julian?" Crossing his long legs slowly, Jules forces Garak to watch, eyes on him. "He's dead, isn't he?"

"I think so, but..."

In one fluid motion, Jules pulls an envelope from his pocket, sliding it into Garak's hand. 

Instinctively, Garak traces the handwriting. He'd know it anywhere.

"You dropped it by the lake." Jules punctuates his statement with another violent pull of whiskey. 

There's no letter inside, only a blank sheet of paper. Garak, furious, storms out of the club and onto the fog-smothered street. 

"Elim!"

He doesn't stop at Jules' call. Rage threatens to boil over.

"Elim!"

Garak breaks into a sprint. Escaping the voice that both is and is not Julian's is all he cares about.

"Elim!"

There's something off about that voice this time. A sinister undercurrent.

The radio in his pocket crackles to life.

"Elim?"

He ducks into the first building he can, a holoarcade.

Once the door's closed, he crouches down. The windows are all blacked out, covered in newsprint. Between the cracked paint and scratched-off paper, some scant sunlight seeps in.

Garak holds his breath.

"Elim?" 

It's a wet growl this time, just outside the doors. A shape blocks out the sunlight: three times larger than Julian and writhing like those other beasts.

But then it passes over the holoarcade. The heavy, dragging footsteps slide off.

Garak sighs.

The holoarcade's mostly forlorn. A few blacklights overhead flicker, polarizing everything from bright neon to pitch blackness. 

The deeper in he steps, the colder he feels. But cold is better than monsters.

Someone coughs in the dark.

Garak draws his gun. 

"Fuck! Chill out man." Rugal.

Garak holsters his gun. "Sorry. You startled me."

" _You_ startled _me!_ " 

"What are you doing here?"

"Eating." Rugal gestures to the pizza boxes on the table in front of him. "This place has some killer pizza."

"This town is full of monsters! How can you sit there and eat pizza?"

Rugal raises a browridge. "I haven't seen any monsters, old man."

Garak shakes his head. He continues inspecting the arcade, all the burnt out holoemitters and blank screens, plastic shells. Did the holograms know they were being taken offline? Were they capable of realizing they were finished?

Dread plants itself in Garak's chest but, hearing Rugal gnawing noisily on stale pizza crusts, the seeds of fear can't germinate.

The radio in Garak's pocket comes to life again. 

"Nine. Two. Four." It sounds like Julian in monotone. "Cotton. Wood."

"What?" He pulls the radio out, listening closer. 

"Nine. Two. Four. Cotton. Wood."

An address, Garak concludes. Julian's leading him somewhere. 

"You okay?"

Garak turns. Rugal's eyeing him suspiciously. Garak blinks, looking at the radio. It's just playing soft static, not screaming or reciting places in Julian's voice.

"I'm alright."

"Sure." Rugal goes back to his pizza.

Garak looks at the doors of the holoarcade, knowing what's in the mist outside. He braces himself.


End file.
